April 14, 2008

Dr. Guenter Bischof (Director, CenterAustria and Chair of History) was busy throughout the academic year 2007/8 organizing an ambitious program celebrating the ten year anniversary of CenterAustria.

Dr. Bischof's Recent Scholarship

• Dr. Bischof lectured on "The Vietnam War as Part of the Cold War" at Ho Chi Minh National University in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He also gave a lecture on "The Johnson Admininstration and the Prague Spring" in the Prague Spring conference.
• He co-edited The Changing Austrian Voter
  (vol. XVI in the Contemporary Austrian Studies series he is coediting); his chapters “The Era of European Integration,” and with Martin David, “Austrian and Czech Historical Memory of World War II, National Identity, and European Integration,” were published in: Ingrao/Szabo, eds., The Germans and the East, Purdue University Press, 2008.
• He also published book reviews and commentaries in the Journal of Cold War Studies, Central European History, H-Diplo, and the Austrian Studies Newsletter. In addition, he has served as a commentator on the 2008 Presidential electoral race for various Austrian media.
• Together with Dr. Millett, the Director of the Eisenhower Center, he continues to serve as a "Presidential Counselor" to the National World War II Musuem in New Orleans. Both helped plan the Museum's second international conference on film and World War II "Real to Reel" and are chairing sessions.
• Dr. Bischof has also been appointed as Vice President for Programming in the Harvard Club of Louisiana.

• In September 2007 he helped to organize an international conference was organized in Innsbruck together with the Canadian Center of the University of Innsbruck and the University of Monkton in Canada on "The Politics of Cultural Minorities in North America: Cajuns and Acadians."
• The highlight of the Ten Year Anniversary was a celebration in February with Eva Nowotny, the Austrian Ambassador to the U.S., and Karlheinz Toechterle, the new Rektor of the University of Innsbruck. On this occasion the ambassador also handed a major Austrian award to Dr. Bischof -- the "Grand Cross of Austria", bestowed by the President of Austria -- recognizing his effort in Center Austria and his leadership in the promotion of Austrian Studies in the U.S. The former Austrian
  Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Science Erhard Busek gave a talk on "Nation-Building in the Balkans." Additionally, the Tirolean Ensemble of Modern Music gave a concert and workshops in the UNO Music Department in late April.
• In May 2008, another conference will be held in Vienna, Austria, jointly with the University of Vienna on "The Marshall Plan in Film, Pictures and Posters" with the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation as principal sponsor.